


You Can't Escape Arkham

by animegoil



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham Asylum (Games), DCU
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-10-31 00:57:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animegoil/pseuds/animegoil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kon knows something happened in Arkham City, but Tim won't admit anything's wrong. So Kon goes behind his back to find out.</p><p>He didn't realize the price of knowing was so high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Тебе не вырваться из Аркхэма](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4262808) by [timmy_failure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timmy_failure/pseuds/timmy_failure)



> I took some liberties with the dialogue from Arkham City. It's gonna be creepy and dark, just warning you.  
> Written for the Tim/Kon meme. Prompt: Kon finds out what the inmates said to Robin.

Kon wakes up to a raw hacking sound, his sleep-muddled brain grasping at straws until it recognizes it as vomiting. Immediately, his fingers reach out beside him to find nothing more than still-warm cotton sheets and the dampness of sweat. His stomach tightens, fully rousing him, and he looks up to see a dim glow coming from underneath the bathroom door.

 

“Tim…?” he calls out, throwing off the covers and padding across the room as the hairs on his arm tingle in protest to the cold. He feels a prickle of guilt at the fact that he didn’t even feel Tim get up, but the closed bathroom door tells him Tim was purposely avoiding waking him, and no one knows how to sneak around better than Tim.

 

“…’m fine,” he hears through the door, recognizing the chagrined undercurrent to Tim’s croak. As if Kon doesn’t have a _right_ to know when his boyfriend is sick. He pushes the door open to see Tim turning his head away quickly and wiping his mouth with toilet paper. His pale hand shakes as he pushes the wadded-up ball into the trashcan, and his back, turned towards Kon, rises and falls with no beat.

 

“You okay?” Kon asks gently. The cold tile floor makes Kon’s toes curl as he grabs a cup and begins to fill it with water, glancing at Tim over his shoulder. “Did you eat something bad?”

 

“No.”

 

Kon tilts his head and holds out the cup, a Nightwing-themed mug Dick got Tim as a joke some months ago. Tim hesitates before taking it, turning his face away again so that Kon can only see the tip of his nose and eyelashes past his washed-out cheekbones.

 

Kon glances at the mostly clear contents in the toilet and frowns. “Did you eat _anything?_ ”

 

Tim grimaces and rubs his forehead, voice raspy. “Seriously, Kon—” There should have been a ‘shut up’ or ‘drop it’ at the end of that sentence, but it’s as if Tim is too tired to even finish it.

 

“C’mon, Tim, you know I hate it when you do that,” Kon says, kneeling down to rub the tip of his fingers in circles across Tim’s back, skittering along the damp cloth to get at the skin underneath. The incandescent light catches on the fine sheen of sweat on his neck, where dark strands of limp hair cling wetly. Kon runs his thumb around Tim’s neck to sweep them back.

 

Tim is always worrying him—too engrossed in his work to remember basic human needs like sleep or food or water. The problem is that he’s got it refined to an art – Kon has seen him go eight days without any _real_ sleep, because Tim knows that a one-hour nap and two protein bars for every sixteen hours he’s awake is just enough to keep him from hitting empty. He’s become a master at avoiding the crash, skirting the limits in a dance that chills Kon with its ruthless efficiency. Usually Kon is there to remind him that it _will_ catch up with him, but sometimes, like tonight, duty calls and keeps him away. “I wish you’d take better care of yourself.”

 

Tim’s shoulders hunch up, and Kon thinks it’s another wave of nausea until Tim leans away from Kon. “Not now, Kon.”

 

Kon glares at Tim. “I can’t be mad when my boyfriend starves himself or stays up for days in a row? Really, Tim?”

 

“You can yell at me tomorrow if you so want,” Tim snaps, dropping his hand away from his face to narrow his eyes at Kon. Then he comes back into himself with a little shudder and sighs, voice dropping back down heavily to drag through the air. “Right now I just want to go back to bed, okay?”

 

Kon winces and feels guilty for having gotten off track. He places a hand on the nape of Tim’s damp neck, rubbing his thumb carefully back and forth. “Right, sorry. You sure you’re good now? What made you get sick?”

 

“Dunno,” Tim mutters, but doesn’t offer any theories as he normally does. Kon tries to shove down the hurt that wells up when Tim brushes Kon’s hand off and pushes himself to a standing position. He sways there, looking so wan and insubstantial in the impersonal wash of the toxic-yellow bathroom light, his body chiseled and firm under the thin T-shirt but in the haggard way of tough, worn-down muscle instead of the full healthy bulges of Kon’s body. His gaze is unfocused, staring at nothing for a moment, and though that’s not an uncommon occurrence with Tim, Kon has been seeing it more often since the whole Arkham City ordeal. Tim hasn’t talked much about it or even acted particularly different, but Kon has known him long enough to suspect that it wasn’t as uneventful as Tim would like him to believe. Upon confirming Batman’s safe return, Tim spent the entire day after in a haze, though Kon didn’t notice until he realized Tim had spent the past two hours at the computer without hitting a single key on his keyboard. Kon has had enough of his own dealings with missions gone wrong to recognize the symptoms.

 

He reaches out and grabs Tim’s hand, slipping his fingers in between Tim’s. His thick knuckles dwarf Tim’s slim fingers until only the ivory tips peek out from the mesh of tan and pale skin.

 

“It’s… was it a nightmare?”

 

Tim’s pinkie twitches but he says nothing, just tugs insistently on Kon’s hand until Kon relents, knowing this a battle lost, and follows him back into bed.

 

Tim says nothing of it the next day.

 

 -o-

 

 

They go through the next two nights without incidence, and Kon is willing to put it aside as a one-time thing. It’s only through one of those dumb strokes of luck that Kon finally finds out otherwise.

 

“You’re such a dumb mutt, Krypto, who’s a dumb mutt?” Kon coos at the dog wagging his tail with so much force that it slams into the kitchen cabinets like a whip, rattling the wood. Kon laughs at the adoring look Krypto regales him with, mouth agape and tongue lapping at the air. He reaches out with his TTK to grab a piece of bacon from the set he’s frying for breakfast and holds it up in the air. “Jump for it boy, jump!”

 

Tim looks up blearily from his laptop and rubs the side of his temples, yawning. “Just give him the bacon, Kon, before his tail snaps through the cabinets. It’s not the same inside since you’re not able to throw it five hundred feet into the air anyway.”

 

“Killjoy,” Kon mutters good-naturedly, and tosses the bacon at Krypto, who barks happily and crouches on the floor to paw and chew at his treat. He reaches out to turn off the stove and takes the opportunity to slip his fingers through Tim’s scalp and kiss the crown of his head.

 

“Kon, you were touching bacon!” Tim’s eyes go comically wide as he twists his head away from Kon’s hand. “I just took a shower!”

 

Kon grins and flicks his ear. “Other hand, birdboy.”

 

Tim looks at the other hand, notices the bacon grease on it, and groans. “You have an awful sense of humor, Kon.”

 

“What about my puns? You’ve always liked my puns.”

 

“Reflex; I was indoctrinated to think they were funny at a young age because of Dick,” Tim mutters darkly.

 

Kon laughs, a throaty chuckle that brings out the briefest flicker of a smile from Tim’s lips, and squeezes Tim’s shoulder, draping himself over his back just because he can. Tim sighs warmly and leans his head back against Kon, eyes fluttering shut so his lashes almost brush the top of his cheeks.

 

“You look tired still,” Kon murmurs as he nuzzles the side of Tim’s face, pressing his nose into the still-damp roots and smelling peach shampoo and the ‘unscented’ deodorant Tim uses. The scent disappears as soon as Kon draws back, crushed under the smell of bacon coating the very air. The pan is still sizzling and crackling, making Kon’s stomach rumble in anticipation. Tim grunts a noncommittal response and lets all his weight fall back onto Kon, who doesn’t even budge. Tim’s earlobe looks tantalizing enough that Kon succumbs and begins to nibble it, earning himself a breathy chuckle from Tim.

 

This is one of the few times they’re able to have breakfast together – their schedules tend to clash horribly, though Kon has become more nocturnal to accommodate Tim, and Tim tries to go to sleep at a reasonable time when Kon has to get up early. But breakfast—this domestic bliss of ready-made biscuits in the oven, sunlight streaming through the windows and coating his skin with warmth while Tim rattles away on his laptop in the kitchen instead of his office and an hour of peace before Tim has to head to Wayne Enterprises and Kon goes off to the Watchtower— this is rare and precious and the sort of thing Kon holds on to during the bleaker moments of their job.

 

“Oh, Tim,” he murmurs, dragging the ‘m’ out, low and inviting, and wrapped around Tim as he is, he can feel the way Tim’s body straightens infinitesimally, and his pulse begins drumming. He slips a finger under the hem of Tim’s pants, searching automatically for the rough patch of scar tissue on Tim’s hip that he likes to rub. “Mmmm… I want you…”

 

Tim swallows, fingers stilling over his laptop.

 

“I want you…” He mouths the side of Tim’s neck, ghosting his breath damply over the thin skin, feeling the thick, steady pulse of the artery underneath, “…to finish that fruitbowl.”

 

Tim’s shoulders fall and he throws an incredulous look at Kon. Kon cackles.

 

“Got ya good, didn’t I?” He ducks Tim’s swat. “Had you all riled up only to tell you that you better finish your breakfast, Wonder Boy. How do you like _them_ apples?”

 

“Crunchy and sour,” Tim responds glibly, reaching out to pop a piece in his mouth.

 

“Good boy,” he says to Tim, but Krypto lifts his head from where he sits licking at the ceramic floor for all and any traces of bacon grease. Kon pats him as he heads to the bathroom for a quick break.

 

It’s one of those weird ways that things come together. Tim is all about intuitions based on logic and knowledge, piecing facts together. Kon is more about hunches, gut feelings that don’t necessarily have any true basis. It’s the combination of the strong smell of antiseptic that hits him when he closes the door behind him, the fact that the trash has been taken out, even though Kon just took it out two days ago and they clean the apartment on Saturday anyway. It’s the way those two things click with Tim still seeming tired even though they went to bed an hour earlier the night before, and the fact that Tim woke up with a different shirt this morning, though Kon didn’t really realize that until now. It’s all of those little observations, dispersed neurons firing rapidly all at once to form a picture that Kon doesn’t like.

 

He wrings his hands as he washes them, squeezing every particle of air from between his palms, twisting the faucet harshly as his mind seethes and goes through a million ways of bringing this up. Though he can’t settle on one way and knows from experience that his mouth will just do whatever, at least he knows that keeping quiet is _not_ an option. Tim sometimes takes his damn privacy too far and Kon is not going to remain silent about that any longer.

 

He opens the door again with far too much force, and Tim’s head jerks upward, startled. Kon doesn’t have the patience to be subtle: as soon as their eyes connect, all previous traces of humor bleed out from Tim’s face to be replaced with unease.

 

“Have you kept throwing up, Tim?” Kon snarls, taking a step forward. As if flicking a switch, Tim’s face turns white like a sheet of paper: cold, blank, and impersonal. He looks like he’s expecting a war with his shoulders set back and his head held high and tense.

 

“Kon—” Tim begins, voice somewhere between cold and pacifying. It’s his _logic_ voice, and that gives Kon his answer immediately.

 

“Don’t even start, Tim.” Krypto whines low in his throat, slowly retreating, and Kon spares a glance to reassure him with a pat with his TTK before locking gazes with Tim and taking a breath. “I know you’re… _you_ and you hate worrying people, and saving the world is literally easier than getting you to open up, but fuck it, Tim!” Kon resists holding on to the counter or the chair, because he will undoubtedly break them, so he’s left with nothing to do but clench his hands. A familiar heat  begins building up behind his retinas and he closes his eyes before he inadvertently sets something on fire. The awareness that he’s angry enough to set off his laser vision actually works to bring him down a notch so that he can start again without yelling. “You piss me off when you do that, you know that?”

 

Tim says nothing, just watches him patiently and warily, back ramrod straight. Kon wishes he’d say something, do something, just _react_ , but he knows from experience that Tim shuts down all emotion at moments like this. He’ll wait for the storm to pass, for Kon to vent, and then and _only_ then is when he’ll offer his side of the story. Alright. So if that’s how he’s going to do it this time too, then Kon will take advantage of it.

 

“We’ve been together for, what, four years now, Tim? And friends for God knows how long?” He stares at Tim, long and hard, lets his next words connect. “Are we _really_ partners if I don’t know when you’re going through shit? If you don’t tell me when you get _sick?_ You don’t get a choice – things like health, mental or physical, whatever, _you_ _tell me those_.”

 

The chair and table suddenly screech as his TTK pushes at them, and Tim’s eyes fickler toward them in surprise. Kon considers reigning it in, but he _wants_ Tim to see how angry he is. His voice drops dangerously low and the silverware on the table rattles with the flare of his TTK. “You will fucking allow me to care, you got it? Because _I_ got it – you don’t want to worry me and all that shit, but guess what, my feelings get hurt _worse_ when you lie to me. Lying, Tim! I thought we’d gotten past that!”

 

The glass of orange juice topples over, and Tim jumps out of the way as it spreads across the granite, around the fruitbowl, and begins dripping over the side. He glances back and forth from Kon to the spreading puddle as if unsure of which to take care of first. Kon solves the problem for him by stalking over to the sink and snatching a rag, pushing up next to Tim to begin wiping the countertop. Tim pulls away from where their arms touch.

 

It takes until he kneels to the floor, a few angry swipes enough to clean the mess, before Tim speaks up.

 

“I…”

 

Kon stills and listens.

 

“It’s not a big deal,” Tim mutters.

 

Kon squeezes the rag so hard all the juice drips back onto the floor. If there’s one thing living with Tim has taught him, it’s self-restraint—at least, as much as he’s capable of. He grits his teeth and counts to ten, breathing in through his nose as he cleans it back up. “ _I don’t care,_ Tim. Big or little, I want to you to tell me. I don’t care what it is to _you_ , to me it’s a big deal. And I don’t know what part of _throwing up_ isn’t a big deal to you.” 

 

Tim runs his hand through his hair as Kon stands up to dump the rag in the sink. “No, I mean…”

 

Kon leans against the sink, facing Tim, and waits, eyes hard, for Tim to come up with another excuse that will set Kon’s blood boiling. Tim avoids looking at him, pulling at the sleeves of his sleeping shirt nervously. Despite his anger, Kon recognizes when Tim’s struggling with how to open up conversation, and Kon finds it in himself to help him.

 

“I don’t think it’s a stomach virus or that you’re sick.”

 

Tim nods, still looking at the ground, and scratches his wrist. Even with all the anger, Kon still has the irrational compulsion to hug Tim.

 

“Is it whatever happened in Arkham?”

 

That startles Tim into glancing up, swallowing and opening his mouth. His tongue lies poised just behind his teeth, and Kon can see the gears turning: how much to tell, how to minimize the damage, how to explain—

 

“Just _say it_ , Tim,” Kon begs, pushing away from the sink to place his hands on Tim’s shoulders and run his hands down his arms slowly, feeling wiry muscles under the soft cloth. Tim, ever so headstrong, glares at the floor, resisting when Kon tries to pull him closer.

 

“What if I don’t _want_ to say it?” he answers with pursed lips, turning his head away. “It’s nothing you can help me with, Kon.”

 

Kon growls, tightening his grip when Tim tries to wriggle away. Tim says nothing, but Kon can tell by the gritting of his teeth that it’s painful. Kon forces himself to loosen his grip, just a fraction. “Dude, not fair that you just assume I can’t help without even letting me know what the problem is in the first place! You’re kinda hypocritical sometimes, you know that? You want to know everything that’s going on around you, but you won’t let other people know anything about _you_.”

 

“That’s because it’s just a minor inconvenience until I can get their damn voices out of my head,” Tim snaps, and before Kon can blink, Tim has pinched the nerves in both of his wrists, quick like snakebite, and used the involuntary slackening of Kon’s grip to twist away.

 

“Ah, fuck, Tim,” he says, trying to shake the numbness out of his hands. “No fucking Bat-tricks!”

 

“No super-strength, then,” Tim counters just as smartly, crossing his arms, face impassive like a cement wall. Kon hasn’t seen Tim be this closed off in a while now.

 

“…My bad,” he agrees reluctantly. He crosses his own arms, fingertips still tingling, and raises an eyebrow at Tim, a habit he picked up from him. “So. Voices?”

 

Tim closes his eyes and Kon _knows_ he’s thinking, _Shit, I shouldn’t have let that slip._

 

“I _don’t_ want to talk about it,” Tim says after a moment, jaw so tight Kon can see the vein jumping at the side of his neck. “It’ll go away soon.”

 

“Yeah? When—”

 

Kon is cut off by the shrill beep of Tim’s communicator, a sound they’re both conditioned to react to even in sleep. Tim swipes it off the table and plugs it in his ear, no doubt glad for the interruption.

 

“Red here.”

 

Kon groans as Tim begins nodding and responding to whoever’s on the other line. The fight goes out of him, leaving him drained, and he knows he won’t be able to pick it up after Tim hangs up. So he grabs the rag again, wipes it half-heartedly along the table to get the last remnants of orange juice, catches Tim’s eye just quick enough to point at his fruit-salad breakfast to remind him to eat, and grabs a plate to dump his own bacon and eggs on. He takes his breakfast to the living room and stares morosely at the blank TV screen while he eats, listening to the sharp cadence of Tim’s business voice.

 

Tim has gotten a lot better over the years about letting people help him, but better is not perfect. It frustrates Kon, because even though he knows it’s only due to some lofty aspirations of being completely self-sufficient and not worrying others, he still feels as if it’s because Tim doesn’t trust him. Kon doesn’t know how to get past that cement wall — _fortress_ —Tim has built around himself.

 

He’s finishing his breakfast just as Tim’s saying, “Yeah, N, I can be there in fifteen. Hold the fort down until then.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, Superboy. How’s the JLA treating ya?” Dick says by way of greeting when Kon comms him later that day. Kon’s always liked Dick, though it’s only lately that they’ve begun seeing each other for more than the occasional world-saving or Titans business. The best part of it is the way Tim watches them when they interact, as if he’s inexplicably pleased to see two of the most important people in his life together and getting along.

 

“Oh, great. Superman’s been showing me the ropes and everyone’s been cool. Your tips on how to deal with some of the, um, more difficult people on the League are coming in handy. They keep me pretty busy though.” Kon’s currently dodging some rainclouds on his way to Metropolis to meet Clark and Diana for an emergency, as a matter of fact. “But— that’s not why I’m calling.”

 

Dick sighs. “Yeah, I know… Did you and Tim have a fight?”

 

Kon groans, and even the blast of sunlight warming his back isn’t enough to soothe the clenching of his stomach. “Is he still pissed at me? I mean, I know I came on kinda strong but it’s not like I was totally wrong. Or at all, but that’s probably not what he’s thinking.”

 

Dick chuckles once, but the sound crumbles into nothing. “…Actually, he just seems kind of sad… he’s been moody and down all day, and you’re usually the only thing that affects him this much anymore, so I figured maybe you’d fought. What happened?”

 

“I don’t really know,” Kum mutters dejectedly. “He’s been… N, what happened in Arkham? I thought everything’d turned out okay? I mean, it’s over, Batman’s fine, you’re fine… but Tim’s not fine.”

 

“What do you mean?” An inkling of alarm threads through Dick’s voice.

 

Kon drops his hand down to drag it absently through a cloud as he skims over the top. “He’s been distracted ever since you guys got back from there, and I think he’s having nightmares, but he’s so damn quiet and secretive.” He wiggles his fingers through the cold moisture and draws his hand back. “Either way, he was trying to hide from me that he’s been throwing up at night, and that’s why we fought today. God, you Bats, seriously.”

 

Dick doesn’t bother responding to the last bit, but he does hum thoughtfully. “Like you said, Batman managed to take care of things in the end, but it was something about the place… it was oppressive, and Tim internalizes things pretty intensely so I could see how it would affect him… Jesus, we were like worms in the middle of this nest of psychotic vultures. You ever been in Arkham, kid?”

 

Kon swallows. “No.”

 

“Then maybe that’s why Tim’s not really talking. It’s hard to explain to those who haven’t seen it for themselves. I mean, I’m having a hard time putting that whole thing behind me myself—can’t forget their voices, Jesus.”

 

“Voices?” Kon says, perking up. “Tim said the same thing. About voices.” His tone becomes sober again, “Nightwing, what did they say? What’s so bad about their voices?”

 

Dick hesitates, and his voice gets quiet. “I can show you.”

 

 

~0~

 

 

Kon looks around nervously as he always does when he’s in the Batcave. While it’s not the first time he’s been inside, he’s heard way too many legends and bogeyman stories about this place. Each time he’s just waiting for a minefield to explode or a secret trapdoor to a new dimension to open up and suck him in.

 

“I see Drake’s pet lummox has decided to grace us with his presence.”

 

Kon whips about only to find Damian perched on top of one of the giant computers that litter the Batcave like potted plants in an old maid’s home. The kid has gotten taller and bulkier in the past few years, but his attitude has remained more or less the same. Kon has had the occasional decent conversation with him, but that generally revolves around cars and mechanics and occurs maybe once a year. This is not that once.

 

“I’m here on _adult_ business, so run along, twip.”

 

Damian tsks and hops down, landing just as lightly as Tim. “Aside from my doubts about your maturity’s capacity to undertake _adult_ business,” he says, brushing dust from his Robin leggings, “I’ll inform you now that you had better rectify whatever problem you have with Drake before I take personal offense to his current pathetic sulking.”

 

It takes Kon a moment to go through the statement and pick it apart—Damian’s hedgy with his phrasing, though it didn’t take long for Kon to realize that the hedgier the phrasing, the more there is to whatever Damian is actually saying than he lets on. In this case, Kon is fairly sure Damian’s telling him that he’s worried about Tim and wants Kon to fix it.

 

“Got it, kid.” Kon grins, letting enough warmth through it to make Damian freeze, twitch uncomfortably, and turn back around with a grumble.Kon’s lips quirk one last time before they fall back to press together grimly. Kon follows the sound of keyboards clacking to the back of the cave, where Dick is.

 

“So, you said Bruce and Tim are out on patrol?” Kon asks after a moment, when Dick seems too engrossed in his work to acknowledge Kon’s presence. The wriggling dark blurs on the ceiling look less like bats and more like tentacles in the gaping maw of a giant shadow monster about to swallow him. Kon tries to clear his mind of that image.

 

Dick blinks and looks up from the screen as he pushes his chair back to stand up. “Oh, yeah.” He taps a few last strokes on the keyboard and motions to Kon. “They’ve been working on a project for the past few weeks. Glad you came, follow me.”

 

“Um, how, exactly, are you going to show me?” Kon says as Dick leads him down a rock-lined hallway into what seems like the pits of darkness of the cave.  Dick’s red Nightwing suit, far from standing out, seems to blend in with the gloom. From seemingly nowhere a door materializes and Dick opens it, ushering Kon inside. Kon gapes as row after row of small television screens turn on, and there’s hundreds of terabyte hard drives lined up along the walls, all neatly labeled.

 

Dick smiles grimly. “Backup tapes. Our suits record everything we look at while we’re in them. I can show you exactly what Tim went through but—” He puts his arm on Kon’s shoulder, squeezing slightly. It’s both warning and comfort. “It’s not going to be pretty, and Tim’s going to skewer me with a ‘rang when he finds out I showed these to you, but I think it’s… it’s necessary. Tim really needs to learn to open up, especially to you. And you need to understand what he faces all the time.”

 

Kon’s insides feel like play-dough, squeezing through a child’s fingers. He watches Dick pick up a hard-drive, plug it in and a few clicks later the screen goes dark.

 

“Come out when you think you’ve seen enough.”

 

The door closes with a metallic clang, leaving Kon in the dark, with the blue lights of the electronics washing over him and the lone leather chair.

 

 

~0~

 

Kon hits pause an hour later, feeling sick to his stomach and shaking. He leans forward and rests his forehead on his hands, listening to his thick breathing in the oppressive silence of the room. He doesn’t know if he’s shaking from righteous anger, — _we’re going to make you hurt—_ from the desire to smash and maim every single one of those disgusting creeps, those sick — _we’re going to break you and feast from you, kid_ — freaks who threatened Tim or from the sheer... well, horror’s not the right word.

 

_Arkham City’s gonna be your grave._

Kon sits in the dim oasis of light provided by the blinking indicator lights of the various electronics of the room, but the various pinpricks of light aren’t able to penetrate the corners of the room and the cavernous ceiling. _My face is the last thing you’re ever going to see, freak._ And maybe his shaking is just a bit from unease as well. He massages his temples, digging his index and middle fingers into his eyebrow ridge as he takes in a shuddering breath.

 

_No one can save you, boy wonder, but you’ll be screaming for them anyway._

 

No, horror’s not the right word. Honestly, Kon doesn’t know what to think, or how to label it. They’ve seen and heard worse – they’ve gone through things that even to this day they refuse to talk about, refuse to acknowledge for fear of another round of hopeless, crippling nightmares and insomnia. Death and putrefaction, tragedy. They’ve seen it all.

 

_Everyone wants you dead, Robin._

It’s not that they haven’t heard things like these before. Even Kon, who doesn’t deal with people like these very often, has heard similar threats of pain and death. On the other hand, there are some….

 

 _Ah, your corpse will feel so_ good, _hot and raw against my_ —

 

Kon stops right there, nearly gagging, and gets up, gripping his jeans, trailing his hand against the chair as he pushes it aside, anything to distract himself. He opens the door and closes it behind him, leaning against the cool metal and feeling his stomach settle at the fresher air, echo of sounds and glimmers of light from the main cave.

 

It’s more than just the words. It’s the _voices_. It’s the way the mean it, the way they truly want to do what they’re bragging about, the way the threats roll off their tongue like poisoned honey or burnt sugar, black and bubbling, so very lovingly. It’s sick and twisted, and Kon is starting to understand what Arkham Asylum really means, and the odd shade of darkness that always flitted in Tim’s eyes whenever he mentioned it.

 

 _We’ll make sure you enjoy your stay in Arkham, kid_.

 

He feels the familiar stirring of anger and shudders, attempting to control himself. He makes his way back to the main cave, his body vibrating with the stress of holding himself back for fear of destroying something. Despite the way he feels like his bones are going to compress and crunch into themselves like cheap aluminum if he doesn’t release this tension, he’s fairly sure that breaking _anything_ in the Batcave is going to have consequences he’ll regret for the rest of his life.

 

“Dick.”

 

Dick looks up and his lips press together when he catches sight of Kon. He looks at him, at the strain that must be apparent in the taut lines of his jaws and neck, which Kon feels like are going to snap any second. “Got what you needed?”

 

“Yes,” Kon says, and he thinks his palms may be bleeding where his fingernails, even blunt as they are, have finally broken the skin. “But I’m not done yet. Do you have somewhere… I can safely vent?”

 

Dick’s eyebrows rise and then he smiles faintly and claps Kon’s shoulder. “I’ll lower the emergency hatch to the Batcave. It’s supposed to be for sealing it off in case of intrusion, so it’s strong enough to keep even Superman from breaking it. I think it should be able to handle anything you throw at it.”

 

Kon wishes he could smile back, but at this point it would look more like a grimace. “Thanks.”

 

The corners of Dick’s smile wilt as he reaches over and flicks a switch. “It is that bad, isn’t it.”

 

Since it’s not a question, Kon doesn’t answer.

 

 

~0~

 

 

Kon slumps sideways against the metal hatch, which must be at least thirty feet thick and reinforced with God knows what. A damp draft of air makes him shiver when it brushes against the sweat dotting his forehead and neck. He pulls up a fist to suck at his raw knuckles, running his tongue over the scraped flesh and grimacing slightly at the sweet, coppery tang.

 

Kon’s mind is empty from exhaustion for a few blessed seconds, and then he thinks of the voices — _you’ll die alone and unwanted, little Robin—_ and it’s over; he sees red and turns to punch the wall again in rage, not even bothering to get up. After a few blows, he falls against the hatch again, panting, pressing the side of his face into the untreated, scratchy metal.

 

It angers and _hurts_ him to imagine anyone saying these things to Tim. Tim is one of the most amazing and talented people Kon has met; there are no words for the emotions Tim evokes in Kon, for the amount of _admiration_ Kon has for everything about Tim. But Tim is also so very, very prone to well-hidden insecurities, and all Kon can hope is that Tim realizes that these things were said by villains, psychos, _crazies_ , and not actually aimed at him, no matter how eerily accurate they were, in terms of what makes Tim cringe.

 

­ _You’re just as crazy as us, admit it. I can tell, you belong here with us._

 

Kon prays, buries his head in his arms, and prays that Tim isn’t taking them seriously, that he isn’t taking this to heart.

 

The past few nights are telling him otherwise. 


	3. Chapter 3

“Is… is Tim back from patrol yet?”

 

Dick frowns at Kon’s words, eyes still glued to the computer screen as he swivels around in his chair. “Superboy…?” He stops when he sees Kon, and something — _everything_ — must be seeping through Kon’s voice and face, because Dick’s suddenly on his feet and making his way towards him. Kon even sees Batman, off towards the side of the Batcave and with his cowl down, stop and turn to look at him.

 

“Oh— oh, shit, if Batman’s here,” Kon stutters, feely shaky and just… not thinking right. He knows he’s not. The overhead lights and the computer screens are too bright after spending who knows how long sitting in the dark in that room, shaking and trying to grasp what he’d just seen. What _Tim_ had seen. Batman shifts and throws Dick a questioning look, though Kon doesn’t register anything more than _Batman_. And—and if Batman’s here, then Tim’s here too, and if Kon meets Tim here… Tim will be so _angry_ that Kon found out about—about Arkham and the _voices_ and Kon can’t handle that right now. He’s nowhere near enough in control of his emotions to deal with Tim properly, and they _will_ fight, and it will be _bad_ and Tim will probably leave to Steph or Cass’s place until things cool down. It’s not the first time it has happened, but Kon can’t get past _bad, bad, bad_.

 

“Are you alright, kid?” Dick asks, and Kon feels infinitely grateful for the hands on his shoulders, because right now he needs grounding, he needs something stable. He feels disconnected, disembodied, and part of it is the fact that it’s four in the morning and Kon’s brain is short-circuiting from sheer exhaustion. The other part is the fact that he feels like he descended into the lowest rings of hell and clawed his way back out. Dying and coming back to life was, surprisingly, less painful. “You look awful.”

 

“Tim,” Kon mutters again, because that’s all he can think of. Tim and the awful voices and the _things_ they said to him. “I—I don’t want us to fight. Don’t want him to leave. Where is he?”

 

Dick’s rubbing his arms, saying something, and it takes Kon a moment to break out of his daze to focus on his words. “Conner, Tim’s not here. He got back a while ago, and I thought it for the best not to mention that you were here until you were done, so he went back to your apartment. He went home, Conner.”

 

 _Home_. Kon wants to go home too. He wants it so desperately, so immediately, that even the knowledge that he could be there in five minutes is not enough. He can’t think in terms of _five minutes_ , five minutes of this pain, this gnawing in his chest. He wants to be home with Tim _now_ , so much that he thinks he’s going to cry.

 

Dick’s looking at him with a heartbroken expression, and says, so softly, “Oh, Conner,” before wrapping him in a hug. And maybe it should be weird, maybe Kon should feel awkward about Nightwing, Tim’s brother, hugging him, but Kon doesn’t care. He feels lost and so _empty_ , as if he’d been taken apart and rebuilt, but they’d forgotten certain pieces inside him. He hugs Dick back, digging his fingers into the other man’s shoulders. It probably hurts, but Dick doesn’t comment.

 

All it takes is one hug and Dick shushing him and rocking him gently for Kon’s composure to crumble. The first sob is ragged and he tries to smother it, ashamed, against Dick’s shoulder.

 

“I’m sorry,” Dick is saying, rubbing Kon’s back as Kon gasps against his shoulder. “I… I thought you needed to know what Tim goes through but I didn’t think… I didn’t realize…”

 

“Tim,” Kon chokes out, feeling so stupid and weak with tears running down his face, and God, Batman’s just there staring, and Damian’s probably judging him from some corner of the ceiling, but Kon can’t hold it back, he just can’t. “They… Tim heard all that. They said all that to him.”

 

How can he explain? How does he explain that he feels so disappointed and disgusted by humanity? That he feels revolted by the darkest corners of the human mind? That he’s terrified of what that must be doing to _Tim_? He doesn’t care that Tim’s used to it— that might be worse, in Kon’s opinion. Now he has a shred of an idea of the kind of nightmares Tim must have. Arkham City was… the collection of the sludge of humanity, and Kon can’t shake the images, the atmosphere, the oppression, the _sickness_. It has sunk into his bones, over his skin like a fine, soothy layer of grime, clinging to his face, his eyelashes, clogging his mouth and making it hard to breathe.  This layer of grime covers his very vision of the world.

 

“I know,” Dick says slowly, pulling away and kneading Kon’s shoulders. “I know.”

 

His eyes say it all. He really does know. This is the world the Bats live in, and Kon should have stayed out.

 

 

~0~

 

At some point he manages to rub his eyes dry and excuse himself. Dick offers him something or the other, but Kon thinks he tells Dick that he needs to get home to Tim. He’s assuming that’s what he ended up saying, at least, because now he’s flying towards their apartment. He’s marginally calmer now, still dazed and sort of—in shock is probably the best way to describe it. The air is still cold, but from this height he can see a hint of violet towards the horizon, heralding the rise of the sun in an hour or two.

Kon hovers just outside the windowsill of their apartment and has to take a steadying breath to be able to open the window – Tim has an alarm set that can only be deactivated by applying some eerily precise number of Newtons to the latch. Kon doesn’t know the exact number. He only knows it by feel, knows he has to push ten times as much as a normal human being, but the exact number escapes him. Either way, he’s the only one who knows how to open it, and that’s good enough for Tim’s paranoia.

 

Right now he’s afraid he’s going to push too hard— he’s nervous, and he still feels disjointed, like his body’s not responding properly. He wants to see Tim so badly, he needs, he wants… he fumbles for the latch, breathes  and pushes, hoping that his body’s used enough to the motion to not mess up at this moment.

 

It clicks open and he mutters a quick ‘thank God’ before slipping inside, heading towards the bed immediately. He’s not sure how to face Tim at the moment, but he does know that he needs to hear his heart, his breath, wrap himself around Tim’s body—

 

The bed is empty.

 

Kon’s heart stops for a moment, clatters to the ground like a cold bullet while he stares at the rumpled covers in disbelief. Tim knows. Tim found out about Kon digging up information about Arkham and got angry enough to leave. That’s the only reason Kon can think of for why Tim isn’t in their bed when Dick said he’d gone home.

 

“Please, no,” he mutters, pressing his heels to his eyes. He has to be wrong; maybe Tim is in the bathroom (no, the door is open and the lights are off), or the kitchen (lights off, no noise). Focus _,_ he tells himself, concentrate. The voices rattle in his brain. _You will die alone, little bird_. Where is Tim? _Wait ‘til I get my hands on ya, I’ll skin ya and make ya beg for people who’ll never come_. He hones in on the sound of Tim’s heart, a rhythm he has ingrained in his bones, though it will do him no good if Tim isn’t somewhere within Gotham—beyond that, the muddle of humanity’s breaths and beats becomes gray noise.

 

Tim’s heartbeat thrums, slow and steady just beyond their bedroom. Kon’s relief is like a convulsion that floods him, making him throw his head back and sigh. He flies into the living room, and yes, Tim is there, curled up on the couch under the blanket they use for their movie night with the remote lying on the carpet under his slack fingers. The television is on mute, its light shifting and creating unsteady shadows on Tim’s sleeping face. He kneels in front of Tim, and his chest clenches when the white glow catches on the line of dried tears down Tim’s cheeks.

 

 _You’ll wish you said goodbye before coming here, boy_. Kon chokes and the need to touch Tim, to hold him and soothe him overwhelms him and he isn’t even done brushing his thumb against the tear-tracks before he has to wrap his whole body around Tim’s head and shoulders. Tim jolts awake at the contact, pulse spiking abruptly before his shoulders drop and he fists his hands in Kon’s shirt. “…Kon.”

 

“Tim.” He says it like a prayer. Squeezes tighter. Buries his face in Tim’s hair.

 

“…Where were you?” Tim breathes out in a whisper. “I thought… I thought you were still angry and you’d left to Kansas.”

 

“Never,” Kon says hoarsely, ignoring the irony of Tim’s statement. He might be shaking again; it’s hard to tell with all the tension vibrating through him, making him feel jittery and short of breath. _You’ll die alone, brat, and we’ll gorge on your blood_. “I’ll never leave you, Tim, I promise.”

 

“Kon…” Tim’s fingers reach up, slide slowly and carefully up Kon’s neck and along the side of Kon’s face to cradle his cheek, and there’s still too much space between them, too few areas of contact, so Kon climbs on top of Tim, kicking the remote aside and getting his feet caught in the blanket. He’s still unable to pull back and look Tim in the eye. Still breathing Tim’s scent with his nose buried in his hair. “What’s wrong? Kon?”

 

He shakes his head and all he knows is that he can keep Tim safe like this, curled over him, his large body covering Tim’s frame completely and blocking the rest of the world from him. _Don’tcha know, kid? We’re the stuff of nightmares_. But even with his invulnerability, even with his super-strength, Kon can’t keep him safe from… from this sludge of humanity, this aspect that chills him to his very core, this grimness that permeates his every pore.

 

“Kon,” Tim says, his voice now tinged with alarm, “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

 

Tim’s hands are already snaking around Kon, skimming down his back to check for damage, but Kon grabs Tim’s arms and holds them still, pulls his face up to kiss Tim and cover his lips hungrily. It’s only brief reassurance, and though Tim kisses back, the noises he makes are more confused than pleasured.

 

“Kon,” Tim says sternly, pulling back and searching Kon’s face with worry knitting his eyebrows. “What happened?”

 

“I don’t want to talk about it now. Please,” Kon begs, and he doesn’t care that Tim’s face morphs into shock and concern. “Tomorrow. Please, I’ll tell you tomorrow. Right now I just want to be with you.”

 

Were Tim someone more vindictive, he’d point out the irony of their situation and the hypocrisy of Kon wanting to save the talking for tomorrow. But Tim indulges him, and Kon suspects it is as much out of trust as it is because it’s such an unusual request from Kon.  

 

“Yeah… okay.” Tim runs the tip of his index finger down the bridge of Kon’s nose, and it’s frightening how that simple touch can make Kon shudder and how it can convey so clearly _It’s okay, I’m here_. “We can talk about it tomorrow.” He rubs Kon’s cheek gently with his thumb, back and forth, and Kon leans into the touch and bites his lip because Tim is here, Tim who has gone through so much, who has these _voices_ in his head and despite it, despite night after night with these nightmares, he’s here attempting to comfort Kon. And Kon feels guilty that he’s the one needing comfort, when the whole point of asking Dick about Arkham was to help Tim, but… he can’t comfort Tim until he’s more himself, until he can stop shivering and feeling ill with images of deformed shapes lunging at him and the flash of a rictus grin, gaping open and cackling and shouting obscenities and threats _all at Tim_.

 

This is what Tim goes through on a regular basis… He’s always known that the least he can do for Tim is be there for him and help him through it, but that required _understanding_ what Tim goes through. It turned out to be more than Kon was expecting, but he will never regret it.

 

“Tim,” Kon murmurs, pushing himself down so that he can place his head right above Tim’s heart, letting Tim nestle his chin on the top of Kon’s head. Tim’s arms are wrapped loosely around Kon’s back, stroking feather-soft, back and forth across his shoulders while Kon still has a death grip on him – reminding himself constantly to hold back, lest he hurt Tim. He closes his eyes and hears Tim’s comforting hum, listens to the sound fade and mingle with his steady heartbeat. He wants his world right now to consist of Tim’s ribs underneath him, ground for him to walk on. His sea will be the velvet of the blanket tangled between their legs and brushing against his abdomen where his shirt is riding up. He wants Tim’s breaths to be the wind and his skin to provide all the warmth of sunlight he’ll ever need, and his heartbeat to be the only language he’ll ever need to know.

 

But there’s darkness seeping into the edges of his world and the air at the nape of his neck is cold and biting.

 

“You know I’ll always be here for you, right? You know there’s no one more important to me?”

 

_You know you mean the world to me? You know I couldn’t live without you? You know I can’t bear the thought of you in pain or hurting?_

 

Tim’s fingers still, catching on a fold of Kon’s shirt, and he shifts his leg to a more comfortable position underneath Kon’s. Kon knows that he hears everything that Kon is too distraught to say, everything that his ragged voice screamed in baritones. He takes a shaky breath and whispers, “I… yes. I know.” He pauses as if measuring his next words and then scrubs Kon’s shoulder reassuringly as he presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Let’s get in bed. Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning.”

 

He waits patiently for Kon to gather his wits about him and struggle into a standing position before taking his hand and pulling himself up. They hold hands for a long moment, Tim rubbing little circles on Kon’s knuckles as he stares at their hands with a pensive look. Then he leans over to shut off the television and begins pulling Kon to bed, fingers intertwined so tightly that Kon can imagine their hands permanently molded to each other. He stumbles after Tim, and at any other moment he would be ashamed at the way his stomach curdles and his feet don’t seem to align with each other, almost causing him to bump into the door frame. Right now he can only focus on Tim’s head and his dark tufts of hair. The image of Tim leading him to bed, steps slow in consideration of Kon’s stumbles, his pale arm stretched back towards him, his face turning to look back reassuringly at Kon even though his eyes are dark with worry, the gentle squeeze of his small fingers— Kon stops in the middle of their bedroom, his head swimming with exhaustion because it must be past dawn now, and he just wants tonight to be over and that filthy layer Arkham soot and grime to let go of him.

 

“Tim—”

 

“Shh, Conner.” Tim reaches up to cup Kon’s face and rub his cheekbones firmly. He’s keeping his promise and not prying, though Kon can tell that he wants to by the tight set of his jaw. “You need to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning, I promise.” 

 

Tim’s thumbs run along the ridge of Kon’s eyebrows, the pressure firm but soothing. How does he do it? How can he stand here when out there… when just a few days ago… It frightens him how Tim goes through his days with this… this darkness, this brutality and sickness swimming in his head, sneaking through his entrails, poisoning his mind. 

 

“How do you deal with… with bad things, Tim?”

 

He hears Tim swallow and feels the ripple of goosebumps that breaks out across his pale skin, but Tim wraps his arms around Kon’s neck and pushes up on his tiptoes to press his lips against the corner of Kon’s mouth. When he leans back, he smiles sadly and sits down on the bed, pulling Kon down with him.

 

It’s only once he has settled Kon in his arms and arranged himself so that he can scratch gently at the short hair on the back of Kon’s head that he finally responds.

 

“I come home to you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the great comments on this fic. It was emotionally exhausting to write (you can tell I was running out of juice by the last chapter, which ended up being a third of the whole fic itself). I hope I was able to capture something of the complexity and beauty of Tim and Kon's relationship though.

Kon is roused from the deep sleep of the exhausted by Tim’s voice.

 

“Tam? Can you please cancel my meetings today? ...No, I’m fine, it’s— It’s Conner. I need to stay with him today… Yeah, I’ll let you know. Thanks.” 

 

It’s far away, faintly hushed, and soothes the knot in Kon’s stomach enough to let him go back to sleep.

 

~0~

 

This time, Kon dreams of shapeless shadows, shifting and jumping between the corners of his vision. He thinks he remembers a static voice slithering down his throat and ragged laughter scraping the inside of his stomach like a sandpapery tongue.

 

He wakes with a start, gasping in the face of a nameless darkness that fades as soon as he opens his eyes. It takes him a moment to reconcile himself with the blue-gray hues of their own room and the warmth settled next to him, pressed against his side.

 

“Conner?” Tim’s fingers hover above Kon’s cheek and Kon takes a deep breath and scrubs his palm across his face. When he pulls it away, he swears there’s Arkham slime and filth dripping from his hand like black saliva. He tears his gaze away and finally looks at Tim, seeing the concern in his eyes. He takes Tim’s hand, fingers wrapping over the smooth flesh, and places it back on his cheek. Tim’s expression loosens, one delicate finger tracing a path back and forth under Kon’s eye.

 

“Morning, birdboy,” Kon murmurs, basking in the fleeting comfort of warmth and quiet. Tim’s laptop is sitting at the foot of the bed, powered on, but Tim has apparently been by his side long enough for the screen to shut off. “What time is it?” The blackout curtains throwing the bedroom into perpetual haze make it difficult for him to gauge time, but he feels enough lethargy to know he’s due for a sunbathing session above the clouds pretty soon.

 

“One in the afternoon. We got to bed pretty late this morning.”

 

“Or early, if you wanna look at it that way,” Kon says, but the frown that worms its way between Tim’s eyebrows says it’s not yet time for jokes. Kon’s face crumples and he looks away.

 

Tim lays his hand on Kon’s chest, pressing firmly, and Kon tenses, body taut like a tightrope. Above him, the fan turns in lazy circles, completely at odds with the racing of Kon’s blood.

 

“You should eat first,” Tim says, like he’s picking his way through a minefield. Kon shakes his head, face turned away. Anything he forces down his throat at the moment is likely to not remain there for long.

 

“Get in with me,” Kon says instead, tugging at the covers until Tim complies and lifts them, resuming his position against Kon’s side. The cloth whispers against his skin as Kon turns to lie on his side, one hand sneaking up to slide under Tim’s neck as Tim mirrors his position. Tim’s knees bump into Kon’s thighs and Kon’s stomach feels like a stretched out rubber band about to pop.

 

Tim waits. Kon opens his mouth. Closes it. Closes his eyes. Hears the voices.

 

_You’ll die alone —Scream, brat— We’ll take turns with him— You’ll taste like—alone_

“Kon?”

 

His eyes snap open to realize that Tim is gripping his shoulder and that his body has seized up, throat closing up so that it’s hard to breathe. The rubber band pops, and the words rise like smoke from his mouth.

 

“I went to the Batcave,” Kon says dazedly as he tries to focus on the heat settled between them and the pressure of Tim’s small fingertips pressing into his shoulder instead of the voices. He’s afraid of looking at Tim’s eyes, choosing instead to stare at his pale and hollowed collarbone. “I saw. The clips. The Arkham clips.”

 

Tim’s face freezes like delicate glass. Glass polished into something betrayed by the hoarseness of his voice as he asks, “From my suit?” Kon’s muscles are cramping too much for him to nod, but Tim knows. “All of it?”

 

There’s a cemetery of silence between them. Kon feels like he is standing at the tomb of Tim’s trust, leaves skittering around the fresh, damp dirt and swirling between his feet.

 

Tim whispers, “I see.”

 

The covers rustle as Tim sits up and Kon reaches out for him wildly, but Tim doesn’t leave. He stays there, knees bent up to his chest, staring at the wall, the muscles in his jaw standing out stiffly. Kon doesn’t let go of his hand, and to his relief, Tim squeezes back, rubbing his thumb back and forth mechanically. Kon is desperate for any good sign, and he takes that as such despite the gulf crawling with silence between them. He needs to fix this.

 

“I— you know,” Kon begins, as much out of his own need to pour out his feelings as to try to coax Tim into talking. “I thought I’d seen a lot. But I didn’t know… the things _you_ saw. Enough to mess anyone up.” _Even you._

 

The response is slow in coming as Tim keeps rubbing Kon’s hand. “You realize that a civilian would come out traumatized for life, don’t you, Conner?” Tim says with no inflection in his voice.

 

“I’m not a—”

 

“You are.” He’s still staring at the same spot on the wall, fingers moving in the same exact motion, face so brittle the slightest jolt would shatter it. Something coils in Kon’s stomach at his expression, something he’s trying to avoid, but he doesn’t yet know what. “The only difference is that you don’t run the risk of physical harm. But mental?”

 

Kon can’t deny it, a surge of shame filling him at his inadequacy. Tim fights this every day and Kon can’t handle one instance. As if sensing his thoughts, Tim grips his hand tighter and closes his eyes, taking a deep enough breath that it rattles in Kon’s ears, shoulders and chin dropping as if he’s forcing himself to relax. Then he turns and cups Kon’s thick, square-jointed hand in both of his small white ones. Kon is constantly amazed by the things those slim, human hands are capable of— salvaging, enduring, comforting and suffering. Kon presses his forehead to their joint hands and Tim’s chin comes to settle on the crown of his head as Tim whispers, “…Are you okay?”

 

“I… no.” The change in Tim’s tone, from clipped and monotone to tender and pained, throws him off for a moment. “I don’t know how you do it, Tim. How you keep it to yourself like that. I _can’t_ , it’d eat me up alive if I didn’t get it out.” Tim squeezes his hand and Kon lifts his head to look at Tim, put off by the ceramic finish to Tim’s face—blank and carefully molded into a mask, incongruent with his voice. Kon’s stomach sinks at the sight but he continues anyway, trying to get a reaction out of Tim. “It was horrible. It was one of the most disturbing things I’d ever seen.”

 

He’s hoping to spur Tim into admitting the same, into finally opening up. But Tim leans over without a word and wraps his arms around Kon, pulling him close and holding him, running the tips of his fingers through Kon’s hair. Kon feels the knot in his chest loosen at the physical contact, the feel of Tim’s feathery hair brushing against his face when he buries his nose behind Tim’s ear and bunches his fists on the back of Tim’s thin, soft t-shirt.

 

“Did you… did you feel the same?”

 

Tim’s arms twitch, but his fingers continue running through Kon’s hair without pause. “It’ll be alright, Kon. It’ll fade, I promise it does.”

 

Tim’s fingers are trembling on his scalp.

 

Understanding flashes in Kon’s mind. He leans away and sits up. Tim’s crystallized face stares back at him, and Kon knows now. Tim is shutting down his own feelings and trying to focus on Kon’s so that he can comfort him. His heart clenches in anger and admiration, disbelief at Tim’s eternal selflessness, and Kon’s guilt for not realizing it sooner. It’s Kon’s job to remind Tim that he’s as important as everyone else.

 

“Tim, _stop it_. Listen. This is supposed to be about _you_.” He takes Tim’s face and pulls it closer, thumbs stroking the tiny rugged scars and pockmarks across Tim’s cheeks, accumulated over the years. Kon searches his eyes, trying to get through the glaze of self-control that Tim wears like both armor and a noose that will someday choke him. Sometimes the thing Tim needs the most saving from is himself. “Tim. The things they said… you know they aren’t true, right? You know you can’t believe anything they said to you, right?”

 

Tim’s face is a study in marble, unmoving and so white the shadows under his eyes seem painted. But his throat works as he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, and Kon hears the way his heart stutters and throbs, a painful, deep thrumming that resonates in Kon’s own chest.

 

“Tell me what you’re feeling, Tim. Tell me what you felt, please.”

 

Tim’s face finally splinters and cracks, turning away as his mouth twitches downward into a grimace and his eyes squeeze shut. “I… I can’t, Conner. I need some time to figure out how I feel about this. I need time to process.”

 

The bed dips and the mattress creaks as Tim slides off the bed, and Kon’s stomach takes a plunge into a crevasse that opens up in the middle of this cemetery they’ve created. The earth is opening up between them, loose, decaying dirt tumbling below, and Kon can’t let that happen. If Tim leaves now, Kon feels like a part of him will never come back.

 

“Don’t leave.”

 

It’s just hoarse words cracking in the dimness of their bedroom, just Kon’s fingers hooked on the waistband of Tim’s sweats, just a small tug pulling him backwards.

 

Tim lowers his head and gets in wordlessly next to Kon.

 

 

~0~

 

Kon hovers between consciousness and lethargy for what feels like hours. Tim left sometime after Kon fell asleep again, and he spends an inordinate amount of time simply missing him and running his hands over the wrinkles of the still-warm sheets. When he finally musters up the energy to snatch the clock on the bedside table and look at it, he finds it’s evening already, just after six.

 

He rolls over and stares at the ceiling for a good half hour after that, replaying their conversation and knowing there were so many other things he needed to say. _Sorry_ , for one.

 

In the end, he wasn’t able to get through to Tim, and that both shames and scares him. He did this for him, but all Tim sees is someone who went behind his back and now needs even more attention to make up for the consequences. He wonders if he will ever be able to get through to him.

 

When he finally pushes himself to stand, the dizziness makes him stagger sideways. He takes a shaky breath and goes to the bathroom. Washes his face. Stares at himself in the mirror. Notes that he looks like crap, nearly as tired and pale as Tim usually is, eyes red-rimmed. Spends a few seconds leaning against the counter until his stomach rumbles, contorting inside him in shameless pleas.

 

Krypto meets him at the bedroom door and whines lowly in his throat. Kon spares him a soft pat with his TTK, and Krypto follows him to the kitchen, tail tucked between his legs as if reading Kon’s mood. Kon pauses in the kitchen. He dreads the idea of having to prepare food, his body past the point where it can be patient. He feels shaky and weak, a combination of lack of sun as well as food, so that even pulling the refrigerator door open feels like a strain.

 

So when he sees a bowl of pasta salad, the kind that doesn’t even need to be warmed up, with a yellow sticky and his name written in careful, measured letters, Kon almost feels like crying. That’s when he knows that despite the things that still need to be said and the things that _have_ been said, everything will be alright. They’re in this together for the long run, and at the end of the day what matters is they’re alive and they’re together, and that’s not going to change.

 

He cradles the bowl as if it holds a pumping heart instead of just pasta.

 

Of course, even though he feels steadier now about this debacle, both physically and mentally, it doesn’t obviate the need for Kon to fix things _short-term_. Just because he knows that ten years down the road will find them still together doesn’t mean that it will find them _happily_ together. When Kon really thinks about it, that’s the most frightening part. To be together and yet unhappy is a particular type of agony that Kon would rather not think about.

 

 Krypto butts his leg comfortingly and when Kon finally kneels to give him a good scratch behind the ears, his dark eyes seem sympathetic. Krypto gives his hand a small, tentative lick before retreating to his bundle of blankets, watching him. Kon straightens and goes to look for Tim, past the empty living room— last night’s blanket already folded and tucked away by Tim— and down to Tim’s office. Other than to coax Tim to come out or to get Tim’s attention when he’s feeling particularly affectionate, Kon rarely goes in there—it’s Tim’s sanctuary, built to his specifications and synched to all Wayne Enterprise systems and even the Batcave. The door is closed, making the room nearly soundproof even to Kon’s ears. But at this distance, with Kon’s fingers brushing the cold doorknob, ‘nearly’ is just enough to let Kon hear the way Tim’s voice breaks on the other side of the door.

 

“You went behind my back, Dick. You _hurt_ him… you had no right.” Something close to a sob breaks out and Kon feels the pasta turn heavy and churn in his gut. Tim’s voice drips like slow, thick oil, dark and iridescent. It spreads under the door to coat Kon’s bare feet and slide up his legs, cold, toxic slime engulfing him. “You infected him with what we are, Dick. You stole a piece of him from me forever.”

 

Kon shudders, lungs tightening in synch with his fingers around the doorknob, and he pushes the door open. The lacquered wood of the wall panels and the gleaming desk at one end of the room mock him with propriety as Tim starts and turns around. His face is paler than even his wide blue eyes, lines of tension skittering underneath.

 

“I - I've got to go. I’ll get back to you,” Tim murmurs absently into the phone, and hangs up. Tim’s shoulders straighten into his rigid neutral pose, a repeat of yesterday morning.

 

“Tim.” Kon steps forward. Tim’s eyes are carefully blank. “It wasn’t Dick’s fault. You know… you know I did it for you, right?” A shudder ripples through Tim at that. “No—it’s not your fault. I needed to _know,_ Tim. I needed to know what you were going through, because you never talk about it.”

 

“It wasn’t worth it,” Tim grips the edge of the desk. “It wasn’t a big deal. I was going to get over it.”

 

“The hell it wasn’t, Tim!” Not again, not this same argument again, he thinks. But he can’t just let things sit there as they do day after day after day. “I saw it affect you. I’ve been watching all these years as you deal with whatever _things_ Gotham has, and I’ve always wondered. I’ve tried to be there for you through it all, but there’s only so much I can do when I don’t _know_.” Kon clenches and unclenches his hands alternatively, but he’s tired, not feeling the same spark of anger as before.

 

Tim drops his head, sagging into his seat, his posture so defeated that it makes Kon wince. He wants to go to Tim, wrap his arms around him and reassure him the way he always has in the past. But something keeps him anchored to the doorway, with an expanse of bland, beige carpet and a thick haze of conflicting ideologies between them.

 

“You weren’t _meant_ to know, Kon. Someone like you… I see things like that all the time. I can rationalize and compartmentalize the… horrors of the situation until it doesn’t affect how I function.”

 

“I see you’ve been doing a good job of it lately.” Kon feels petty for saying so, but sometimes Tim is so _blind_.

 

Tim doesn’t respond, just stares at his desk, the neat, separated piles of papers, the gold, engraved pen Kon bought for him a few years back. Kon curls his bares toes into the carpet, his telekinesis nervously ruffling the individual, minutes loops of fabric around his feet.

 

Tim closes his eyes and his throat works, swallowing, Adam’s apple quivering as if his next words are being dragged, kicking and screaming, from the depth of the abyss between them. “You’ll never be the same. It doesn’t… it doesn’t go away.”

 

The black layer of filth clinging to Kon’s skin shifts, as if to remind him of its presence. “I know.” It was a heavy price to pay, but… “I don’t regret it, Tim.”

 

Tim raises his head and bewilderment swirls in his eyes, remnant from a child who believed himself worth nothing. Kon knows that child; he lurks in the back of Tim’s eyes, waiting for those around him to come to the inevitable realization that Tim is the wrong choice, the fall-back option.

 

Kon closes the gap between them and goes to that child.

 

“Do I really have to remind you, Tim?” Kon murmurs softly, kneeling in front of Tim and placing his hands on the sides of his thighs, bracing him. Through the window, beams of weak orange sunlight filter through and bathe Tim’s face and Kon’s hands in pale golden warmth. “We said forever, right? We’re in this for the long run. Anything I can do to help you, to ease your burden even by a little bit – I’ll never regret that, you hear?”

 

Kon squeezes Tim’s legs a bit when Tim doesn’t respond, fingers digging into the thick cotton fabric. He wishes he could convey the truth of his feelings through touch alone, let it sink into the muscles of Tim’s thighs, crackle up along the trail of iron and hemoglobin in his blood and dissolve the incredulity on his face. Tim stares at Kon for what seems like an eternity, and finally reaches down to brush his thumb against the corner of Kon’s mouth. A stray bit of pasta comes off on his thumb and Kon leans forward and licks it off.

 

“You make it sound so easy,” Tim whispers. Kon’s heart breaks a little bit, because it _should_ be that easy.

 

“Tim… do you think I’m happy seeing you suffering, while I’m sitting here not able to help you?”

 

Tim shifts, and the hands that had been inching closer to Kon’s suddenly retreat as Tim folds his arms protectively around himself. “You know how you helped me, Conner? Knowing that when I came home there was someone who could show me life _without_ this infection. With you, I could forget about everything else because you didn’t know about it.” The room falls into darkness as a passing cloud swallows the light, sending dim shadows to curve across Tim’s face. “Until now. There was a part of you that was radiant, Kon, and now it’s gone.”

 

The air rushes out of Kon’s lungs, leaving them feeling tight and vacuumed and he can’t force them to open up again. For the first time, he feels the briefest flicker of regret. He doesn’t know what to say to that because he never realized that’s what he embodied to Tim.

 

Tim slides his fingers through the short hairs on Kon’s forehead, a mournful, slow touch. “This is what I have to accept, isn’t it? That just by virtue of being with you, I’m going to ruin you.”

 

“Tim…” There are so many things wrong with that statement. Kon pushes himself closer between Tim’s legs, touching Tim’s elbows. The sun has sunk past Gotham’s skyline, leaving the office in dimness that fuels Kon’s desperation. The shadows prompt him to hold on even tighter onto Tim, now that he knows what’s out there, and even more, that Tim has to go out there. “How could the most amazing person in the world ruin me? Do you really think...” Kon stops because he knows the answer. Yes. Tim _does_ think that he’s some sort of toxic miasma that brings about unhappiness to the people around him. “Don’t believe yourself. Ignore every doubt you have about yourself. It doesn’t matter what _you_ think, or hell, if it’s even true. You know what matters? That _I_ want you, that _I_ think you complete me and I can’t live without you and you’re everything meaningful in my life.” He tilts his head down to catch Tim’s eyes. “I don’t think you could ever ruin me, Tim. You can only make me a better person.”

 

The doubt doesn’t leave Tim’s eyes. It never does. Kon’s shoulders slump. “Why don’t you believe me?”

 

Tim’s eyes soften. “Sometimes I almost do.”

 

Kon’s throat closes up, and he has to choke back an ugly ball of nameless emotion nudging the back of his tongue, too strong to be just sadness, too twisted for mere shame. He lowers his head onto Tim’s lap and Tim’s hands automatically alight on the top of his head, soothing.

 

Kon has to remind himself each and every time that it’s not a failure on his part. But the longer they’re together the harder it becomes to accept that Tim’s insecurities have a stronghold that will take many more years to dispel. Sometimes he even wonders if they ever will, but he shakes off the insidious tendril of thought before it overwhelms him. He always has to end with the vow that _one day_ he will convince Tim to see himself as Kon does.

 

They stay like that until Kon’s knees ache, the carpet’s pattern surely imprinted on them. Tim’s hands never waver in their back and forth motion on Kon’s scalp, and his touch is the only thing that makes Kon feel better, even though it is only Tim’s attempt to make up for everything he feels he has failed Kon in. Kon wants to refute Tim, to tell him again that it’s not his fault, that Kon doesn’t regret it. But he knows it’d be futile, and that’s the thing Tim’s apologizing for the most: not believing Kon.

 

Finally, Tim stirs, and Kon raises his head. “I need to finish some work tonight,” Tim says quietly, fingers fluttering on the nap of Kon’s neck. Kon hesitates, but he knows a hint when he hears one, so he stands, his hand lingering over Tim’s for a few moments before he finally leaves the room.

 

The door shuts, and Kon isn’t sure whether he feels better or worse. Something shifted, clicked into a new arrangement between them, but he doesn’t know where the change lies or what it means. Or maybe he simply doesn’t want to look deeper for fear that the schism between them has only widened.

 

He tries to go through his usual evening routine, desperate for the feel of normalcy. He takes Krypto for a walk. He makes a phone call to the Watchtower to make sure he didn’t miss anything important. He takes a shower. He stares at the TV for half an hour before giving up. He feels like he’s wading through molasses or a viscous substance weighing his movements down. For all that Kon considers himself an optimistic person, nothing can affect him the way Tim can. He wonders if he should be angry at Tim, angry because he makes things so difficult sometimes and pushes Kon away when all Kon wants is to make Tim feel better. But he can’t bring himself to feel anything other than sadness at the hand Tim’s been dealt, and he can’t blame Tim for the way he has tried to cope with it.

 

Tim’s office door is still closed when Kon finally decides that he wants to get back into bed and just start a new day. He’s not looking forward to sleeping by himself— he can feel the slithers of slime at the edge of his mind, promising fitful sleep—but when he knocks and asks Tim when he’s planning on sleeping, Tim merely gives him that apologetic, plastic smile Kon hadn’t seen directed at him in years, and tells him he still has work left to do.

 

Kon doesn’t doubt that’s true, but he suspects that Tim is either avoiding talking more about the subject, or hoping that he’ll tire himself out enough to fall asleep quickly. Kon knows the pattern. He slips under the covers and stares at the ceiling fan for a while before reaching out and setting the alarm clock for 2 a.m.

 

~0~

 

The shrill noise that startles him out of sleep sets his pulse drumming erratically. It takes him a moment to orient himself, his mind frantic as it disentangles itself from snatches of voices and manic laughter scraping the walls of a metallic cell that’s quickly dissolving into soft covers and a swatch of yellow light falling across them as a door is opened.

 

“Conner? Why is the alarm ringing at two in the morning?”

 

Kon blinks a few times at Tim’s silhouetted figure in the doorway and tries to figure that out himself through the haze of sleep and unsettling dreams.  He has the brief flash of thought that this will be the way he wakes up every day for the next few weeks. Then he remembers Tim’s question and sits up, reaching out to shut off the alarm. “Are you coming to bed soon?”

 

Tim’s silhouette stiffens, and Kon can imagine Tim biting his lip and frowning.

 

“C’mon, Tim. It’s late. You should sleep.” With Tim, he’s not too proud to beg. He can’t handle how much he wants Tim beside him again—needs to touch him and hold him, kiss the scar on his neck and the ones on his hip. He needs to reassure both of them. “I don’t… I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”

 

Tim sighs. “I’ll be back in a moment. Let me turn everything off.”

 

Kon listens as Tim heads back into his office, hears the quick clatter of the keyboard, and then a trail of clicks leading through the kitchen and living room until the hallway light goes off, dunking them in darkness. Kon shivers and listens to Tim’s feet padding across the room, the slide of a drawer opening and closing and the rustling of cloth on skin as Tim changes. Kon spreads a layer of TTK on the bed, and when Tim sinks onto it, he turns a questioning glance towards Kon.

 

“This way I’ll know if you have another nightmare,” Kon says, and before they can start another argument, he adds, “I just don’t want to be left behind when you’re going through something. Especially not after all this. You can’t keep me out forever.”

 

Tim shifts onto his back, pulling the covers up and running his fingers experimentally over the thin, vaguely elastic layer underneath him. Kon feels every shift pulling and tugging on his TTK.

 

When Tim speaks, it’s soft and wistful, and Kon slips his hand under the covers and finds Tim’s hand to thread their fingers together. “I don’t mean to keep you out. I just… didn’t want to expose you to this. You’re not meant for this…”

 

“It’s okay. We’ll both get through it.” He pulls Tim closer, until he can bury his face into Tim’s neck and feel the glow of heat from his body, listening to the cricket-creak of the mattress under their weight. “I just wish you’d talk to me more.”

 

Tim rearranges himself until his back is pressed in a solid line against Kon’s chest, Kon’s chin hooked on the curve of his neck. He takes Kon’s arm and pulls it over himself while Kon positions the other one for Tim to use as a pillow. His muscles loosen like softening butter, because Tim wouldn’t let him spoon him if he really was angry at Kon. It means that Tim is forgiving Kon’s trespassing and willfulness

 

“I never told you what the nightmares were about.”

 

Kon stills, wondering if Tim is really going to…

 

“There’s always one in particular. Where you and Dick and my dad… Steph and everyone else… are lying dead in caskets, and then it’s my turn to die alone. I don't know why I always scream for help, even though I know no one will come.” Tim’s hold on his arm spasms and Kon automatically curls himself tighter around Tim, instinctively trying to make him feel safe. “It’s not— I’m used to it. I’ve had it for a long time. But after Arkham...”

 

“Their voices, right?” Kon whispers. Tim’s head slides up and down, inky black hair brushing against Kon’s face, softer than the calligraphy brushes he used on Kon’s back a few weeks ago. Kon lets himself sink into the tingles of his body against Tim’s—his knee touching the back of Tim’s, the occasional cool poke of a toe, and the sheer solid weight in his arms that he can wrap himself around. It helps keep at bay the voices that echoed in his eardrums and deafened his senses not twenty four hours ago. Tim’s breath and heartbeat are the only noises he’ll ever need to hear.

 

“I— I shouldn’t have been affected,” Tim continues. “I hear things like that all the time. But I guess… not all at once. Not from so many people, and not so… hurtful and disturbing.” He scoffs at himself and shakes his head, and Kon growls, squeezing Tim briefly.

 

“Are you kidding me? You think you don’t have a right to be upset?” Kon takes a deep breath. “I was so angry when I heard what they said to you, Tim. I wanted to break their jaws, keep them from ever opening their mouths again. You don’t deserve any of that.” He buries his nose behind Tim’s ear and breathes, trying to still the memories because now is not the time for anger.  When he finally feels his muscles melt again, he presses a slow kiss to Tim’s shoulder and then lays his cheek to the spot. “Don’t believe anything they said, Tim. It’s not true. You won’t die alone, and you won’t lose me again.” He slides his hand under Tim’s chin and pulls it toward him slowly, until he can see Tim’s eyes. He places a cotton-soft kiss on Tim’s lips, pulling slightly at his lower lip. He feels the swell of something inside him, denser than happiness, making him feel so grateful that he has someone like Tim to hold and protect. More than that, he feels grateful that Tim _lets_ him. Tim’s breath stutters as he pushes back and deepens the kiss. A short, broken whimper slips out from his throat, so high and soft that Kon doubts Tim could even hear it himself. Kon leans back, their breaths still mingling as he cups Tim’s face. “Do you believe this at least?”

 

Tim sighs against his lips and says, “Yes.”


End file.
